The present system is directed to the field of radio communications, with particular applicability to the field of wireless networking, where mobile client devices such as wireless laptop and handheld computers are in radio communication with a network. In the field of wireless networking, it is desirable to operate a wireless local area network (WLAN) with multiple wireless channels, so as to increase throughput and thereby service a greater number of wireless clients. As a result, two-channel configurations are becoming the standard for wireless access point (AP) deployments, used to exchange signals between the network and the client. Such deployments typically include one channel in the 2.4 GHz range in accordance with the IEEE 802.11(b) or (g) protocols, and a single channel in the 5 GHz range in accordance with the IEEE 802.11(a) protocol. It is expected that throughput requirements will continue to rise and that dense wireless client user environments will become the norm, and so multichannel (three or more channel) APs rather than dual channel APs will be required.
It is difficult to anticipate the future standards of multichannel networking, and the specific needs of individual WLAN deployments will inevitably vary in accordance with customer needs. The present dual band AP designs have various advantages and disadvantages as extended to a multichannel deployment. For example, a number of dual band APs may be deployed operating on different individual channels. However, such a deployment would require multiple installations, adequate physical separation, and multiple wires back to the network connection. Also, such an approach does not address the need for deployment of multiple channels in very dense user environments such as conference rooms and classrooms. Single, high-throughput APs having three or four 802.11(a) channels are known and have been considered for dense client coverage, but these approaches are fixed in channelization, and are not sufficiently flexible to adapt to the varying needs of different end-users. Thus, there are no current solutions available that can provide a useful selection of 802.11 band types and the number of channels to be supported within each band.